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MicroTravel
Improving the traveling experience for hostel-goers throughout the world
"What are three words you would use to describe a hostel?"
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Project Summary

The title of this project is Micro Travel, and its purpose is centered on improving the hostel experience for travelers through assessing their needs and desires. Micro Travel is working to create an app that enhances the emotional experience for hostel lodgers by collecting the experiences and itineraries of past travelers and compiling them into unique travel plans, opening new “paths” for youths staying in hostels.

We aim to improve the hostel experience for travelers in China and throughout the rest of the world by creating a more personal, unique travel itinerary that allows individuals to engage with their specific interests and the culture of the place in which they are traveling. We plan to explore, expose, and expand the role of youth hostels in the modern urban landscape.

We seek to address the disparity between the role hostels play in the travels of hostel lodgers and the role the traveler’s desire the hostel to take. We want to improve the user experience of hostel goers as a whole, taking into account the personal desires of these individuals, obtaining these preferences through surveys and fieldwork.

This project seeks to improve the hostel experience for individuals traveling throughout the world by addressing their own personal needs. This is important in allowing people to see the culture that is present in cities that you normally would not see from a “normal” tourist experience. We are seeking to address the divergence between what travelers want--an authentic cultural immersive experience--and what hostels are currently providing.

Our group will be building on the work already done by our Tsinghua University partners. We will conduct our own surveys and fieldwork, providing us with a plethora of research from different regions in the world outside of China. This will, hopefully, provide a wider breadth of knowledge as to what hostel lodgers need as a whole.

Survey

Take our survey in order to add to the continually growing body of research surrounding individuals and their experiences staying in hostels.

Our objectives are:
1. Give personal accounts of hostel experience
2. Evaluate the wants and needs of hostel users 
3. Map out people’s perceptions of hostels and their experiences

Use the link below!
https://docs.google.com/a/stanford.edu/forms/d/1WiCBev8Dca6T0s3xS7pHf27Wo9rhWesTWQ1pMRlUQRc/viewform

Survey Results (Thus Far)

(Online survey question) "In which countries have you stayed in a hostel?"
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General Survey Info:
  • Total Responses: 106
  •  Female (70) 66% / Male (36) 34%
  • 18-25 years old (96%)
  •  A huge majority of the respondents (74%) traveled with friends when they  stayed in hostels. 
  • More than half of the respondents (63%) have stayed in hostels more than 3 times.


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Personal Insights from the online survey respondents:
  • The best thing is that they provide a warm and welcoming community in which all the guests and the owners feel comfortable sharing together. The best hostel experiences I've had were those that had a community  that felt warm and giving, where I felt comfortable hanging out in the shared spaced, and where the hostel felt much more like a community than simply a place to sleep. It was especially helpful when the hostel owners were very knowledgeable at the area and loved to share all their know how!" - Jackie
I think hostels are really interesting communities, and the uncertainty of staying in them makes traveling all the more exciting. I definitely think that safety is a concern, but that many hostels are safe enough. I've definitely met some fascinating folks through hostels, but I also really appreciate that I can choose to be as involved or invisible as I want (not having community programming).
-Anonymous


Micro Travel as Defined by our Tsinghua University Partners Sean Su and Coco Yunzi

Fieldwork
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We traveled to three different hostels in San Francisco, talking to both hostel workers and managers to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the services that hostels in the Bay Area provide.
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Hostel International San Francisco Downtown

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USA Hostels

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Green Tortoise Hostel San Francisco

In addition to the fieldwork we have done in San Francisco, we have interviewed some of our peers about their experiences traveling to different hostels throughout the world. Check out the video below to hear their stories!

PathBook Blog

Our vision for the PathBook is to create an online, interactive platform for hostel-using travelers to share their experiences with future hostel-goers. Through publishing their specific itineraries, past travelers will enable future travelers to venture to the particular sites and destinations in the city that they are most interested in, whether it be hiking, live music venues, coffee shops, biking routes, etc... This will provide travelers with a more exciting, unique, and personal traveling experience.

Link: thepathbook.tumblr.com
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Meet the Team
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Name: Alec Hogan
School: Stanford University
Program/Major: International Relations
Hometown: Orange County, California, U.S.A. 

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Name: Adriana Baird
School: Stanford University
Program/Major: International Relations major, Urban Studies minor
Hometown: Orange County, California, U.S.A. 

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Name: Valerie Gamao
School: Stanford University
Program/Major: Earth Systems- Anthrosphere track
Hometown: Live Oak, Texas, U.S.A. 

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Name: Coco Yunzi
School: Tsinghua University
Program/Major: Information Art and Design
Hometown: Nanjing, China

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Name: Sean Su
School: Tsinghua University
Program/Major: Information Art and Design
Hometown: Henan Province, China

  Program on Urban Studies  |  Civil & Environmental Engineering  |  Earth Systems Program  |  International Policy Studies